


Sunshine and dark honey

by dreamyafterdark



Category: Marriage Story (2019), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Kitchen (2019)
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Barmalley, Charlie Barber needs a hug, Childhood Trauma, Crying, Divorce, Fluff and Angst, Hugs, Kylux - Freeform, Kylux Adjacents, M/M, Spooning, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:21:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21749068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamyafterdark/pseuds/dreamyafterdark
Summary: Charlie's outburst came from pain and grief, Nicole understood that and they parted on OK terms that night. But her sister overheard, and went into panic, asking Gabriel O'Malley to sort things out. Thing is, Gabe isn't used to his targets being so... achingly vulnerable.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Charlie (Marriage Story)/Gabriel O'Malley
Comments: 9
Kudos: 27





	Sunshine and dark honey

**Author's Note:**

> So, I ended up sketching this out yesterday, and it's been following me around all day. I will still update my other Charlie fic, plus other fics, but this one wouldn't let me rest until I uploaded it ^^
> 
> I'd like to call this ship Barmalley - mixing the two names, but also, it sounds like a melancholic bear that needs honey and sunshine, and I think that kinda suits both of them, and in time, they can give that to each other ♥
> 
> Warning for mentions of a knife wound (bleeding, but nothing too serious).  
> Rating and some tags are for future chapters.

Cassie had been the one to give Charlie the divorce papers. Just about – no, she had managed it. And now she was sitting in the car, waiting for Nicole to come out from Charlie’s apartment. Only, she hadn’t and Cassie saw them arguing through the window. Now, perhaps that was to be expected. Perhaps she should have just left it alone, but Nicole was her sister, and Cassie had… had bad experiences with men. She got out of the car, went up to the door, then froze. Charlie… screamed that he wanted Nicole dead. 

She did hear him apologise, sobbing, heard Nicole’s voice, calm - but the damage was done. Cassie had a flashback to her ex, and as she walked back to the car and sat back down inside, pretending she had never heard any of this, her fingers were busy asking an old acquaintance for a favour. She wouldn’t lose her sister, she wouldn’t let Charlie get close to taking her away. Cassie would end this, the way she should have done with her bad ex, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Same thing. Nicole would never see reason on this… Cassie’s hands stopped shaking after she hit Send. She packed the phone away, and mentally said goodbye to Charlie Barber. And then she let her mind swallow the whole thing down, put a smile back on her face and waited for her sister.

LA was exhausting. The sunshine was exhausting, the space… the goddamn space… Charlie felt exposed, he wanted to hide at the back of a cosy bar, squeeze into a tiny flat party, but instead he found himself in this sprawling, overheated city, thousands of miles away from home… 

He walked up to his door, opened it.

... New York, home, his company, his friends…

Closed the door, leaned against the wall.

... Friends… his family. The city itself, and his friends there, his only family. Now he had no one. Henry preferred to stay with Nicole and became more of a stranger to him everyday, Nicole hated his guts, and her family were keeping away now, too… something inside Charlie began to shake, and he straightened up and went into the kitchen.

Dinner was a simple dish. Rice, chicken, vegetables. And a bottle of wine. Then he found some leftover liquor in the cabinet.  
Good enough.

By the time Charlie was sitting on the floor, he had finished the liquor, too. And tried his famous knife-trick. Which went wrong, and resulted in a cut on his arm that didn’t want to stop bleeding. Charlie tried to press a towel onto it, but he began to shake, and then sob, and it was hard to focus on two things at the same time. A weird, random wound, and the end of the fucking world. His world. The end of his world… Everything he’d built and everything he’d tried to avoid… Now he was just like his parents, worse even, since he’d had a warning from their messy divorce. He should have known better. But… it felt like he was watching himself, but couldn’t stop it. 

Nicole drifting further and further away.  
Resenting him.  
Hating him.  
Disgusted.

She was right. He was a fraud. She had roots here, a family, people who loved her and wanted her back. He had no one, everything he had built was a sandcastle that couldn’t withstand a single storm. And it was much too late… much too late to fix any of it…

He looked down at his arm, and laughed darkly. No one would see this. No one would ask what happened, no one would know. Hell, no one would know if he just… disappeared. If the damn ground just opened up and swallowed him whole… everyone would be so much happier…

Charlie’s eye fell onto a slim paper bag in the corner next to him. A gift bag, containing a bottle of fin gin for Nicole’s mother. The kind she liked.  
Well.  
Might as well put that to use now…

In truth, Gabe had retired from this game years ago. He was legit now, on the straight and narrow, but he owed Cassie a favour, and anyway, Gabe despised men that hurt women. He’d sort this piece of shit out, gladly…

The car was out, but the lights were off inside. The fucker was probably asleep already. Just as well. Gabe easily made quick work of the lock, then silently snuck inside. There was a sound… like… coughing? Crying. Sobbing, actually. Like a man, sobbing, in the kitchen. Gabe silently moved forward, until the man came into view, and even in the half-light, Gabe knew this was his target. Charlie Barber. Lying on the floor, shaking with tears, and… bleeding, by the looks of it. What the actual hell?

Gabe was a professional. He had already hesitated too long, but here was the perfect shot now. He just had to take it. He just had to take it. 

Charlie looked up.  
Looked straight up at Gabe pointing a gun at him, and understood nothing of course, and yet, everything really… Dark eyes, framed with long lashes, and impossibly deep. 

“Do it…”, he spat out, voice thick with emotion that Gabe couldn’t know the source of, but realised he wanted to. He really wanted to. 

If he didn’t take the shot now, he was done for. He knew it. The man was large. If he could get up, he’d be able to put up a hell of a fight. And he had seen Gabe, he could ID him. Cassie said he was dangerous. Needed taking down, like a rabid wild animal.

But Gabe couldn’t do it. This here, this man… perhaps he was a dick, who knew. But he wasn’t dangerous. Gabe could sense dangerous. Could sense predators and prey in any room. And Charlie, if anything, was prey with claws. Nothing more than that.

“No.”, he replied, lowering his gun. “It doesn’t make any sense...”

Charlie coughed out something resembling a weak laugh, and Gabe knelt down next to him, slowly. Charlie’s eyes followed him, followed his hand as he reached out towards his injured arm, let him take the towel off that only loosely hung from his wound. Gabe exhaled softly, then looked around for a medikit. In a pinch, he could improvise, but he was lucky enough to find one.

As he knelt back down with it, he saw the look on Charlie’s face and swallowed hard. The man was confused of course, but what got to Gabe was the… innocence. There was such a look of innocence, of vulnerability. He should be asking himself what was happening, who Gabe was and why he should now trust him, but he just accepted everything, and it wrung Gabe’s heart. The man was in shock deeper than that cut, and out of it heavier than whatever he could have drunk and still be conscious. Gabe knew this look. 

Trauma. 

Carefully, he cleaned and dressed Charlie’s wound, then started to pull his sleeve back down, but it was stained with blood. As Gabe turned to look into Charlie’s eyes, he wasn’t sure who started it. It was almost like he felt a surge that dragged him, but the next moment he had wrapped his arms around Charlie, and the other man was holding onto him so tight, Gabe wondered if he would leave marks on his skin.

Charlie’s heartbeat was like a jack-hammer, and he began to sob again, and all Gabe could do was hold him… he’d done this for a couple of his army buddies. When they came back, and the bad memories started. Gabe had no idea what Charlie was processing, but it felt primal. So he held him, for as long as the other man needed, and gradually he calmed down.

They had still not spoken any more, and by this point, Gabe was nervous that words would only complicate things. He couldn’t quite explain why he was doing what he was doing, only that it felt natural, and right, and he imagined it had to be even more bizarre, not to mention disturbing, for Charlie. But Gabe had to get him off of the floor, at least to a sofa. He slid his arms under Charlie’s, and the man understood, and slowly got up with Gabe’s assistance. They walked together, and while Gabe supported Charlie, he let him take direction. They slowly made it into the bedroom, where Charlie sank down onto the king-size bed, and Gabe thought he should be on his way. But Charlie’s hand reached out for him, and… Gabe was unsure what to do, so he took it and held it, and for a moment they stayed like that. 

Then, and really for something to do as much as anything else, Gabe started taking Charlie’s shoes and socks off. Charlie opened his trousers, and Gabe pulled them off, Charlie writhed out of his shirt, and Gabe pulled it out from under him. He went through his wardrobe and found a soft T-shirt that he helped him into, and again, readied himself to leave.

But again, Charlie’s hand came up, and this time his eyes pulled on Gabe as well, and they did not let up until he got into the bed next to the other man. Gabe nodded, and kicked off his shoes and socks. He left the rest on, pulled the covers over them, and wrapped an arm around Charlie, spooning him. The sound coming from the other man could only be described as a whimper, and it made Gabe hold him tighter… 

He had no idea how long it took, Gabe’s mind was a cloud of thoughts rushing around in it, but when he heard from Charlie’s breath that he was asleep, a small smile ran across his face. He had to leave, the sooner the better. But… perhaps…

Gabe pulled Charlie’s front door shut. He was good at breaking in without leaving any traces, so the lock was unharmed. Slinking away in the shadows, he made it to his car parked a few blocks away, then drove back to his place. A deeper smile began to grow on his lips, and he put on the radio… The moon was hanging big and full across the night-time sky… In Charlie Barber’s bedroom, a ray of moonlight fell onto his bedside table... illuminating a note... It contained a name, and a number... and because of the person who left it there... a promise, too.


End file.
